TOWN halls in Greater Manchester are spending more than £10m a year teaching immigrants to speak English.

The Department for Schools says a growing amount of taxpayers' money being spent on teaching English as a second language - particularly in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale.

In Manchester, the annual amount spent on teaching English as a foreign language has increased in nine years from £3m to £4.6m.

In Oldham, with its high ethnic population, the cost is now £2.1m. In Rochdale it is £1.2m.

Manchester's £4.6m bill, paid by the taxpayer, is one of the country's highest - but dwarfed by Birmingham's £14m a year.

The bill for teaching English as a foreign language in other parts of Greater Manchester last year was: Bolton £900,000, Bury £365,000, Salford £260,000, Stockport £210,000, Tameside £400,000, Trafford £447,000 and Wigan £89,000.

The figures were given by schools minister Jim Knight, who said that until 2006 they included contributions from councils, but the grant has since been fully paid by Whitehall.

A Rochdale council spokesman said: "The money is not just for teaching ethnic minority children English.

"The grant covers all work in school to narrow the achievement gaps between ethnic and other youngsters, so their attainment levels are improved."

Department for Schools figures in December showed that in 1,338 schools, children with English as their first language were in a minority.

Of 17,361 primary schools in England, 569 had more than 70 per cent of pupils who counted English as a second language. And in 83 out of 3,343 secondaries, again more than 70 per cent of children, did not have English as their first language.

Teachers' unions say educating a single non-English speaking pupil could cost as much as £30,000 a year and have warned that coping with large numbers of foreign children risks undermining the quality of teaching to all pupils.